Country Music Star Says She Was Harassed for Diabetic Service Dog

Country music star RaeLynn says she is not one for complaining, but she can’t stay silent about a recent incident on an American Airlines flight. The singer claims that a flight attendant harassed her about her diabetic service dog, Jazz.

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On Sunday, April 9, 2018, RaeLynn flew from North Carolina to Maryland for a conference on diabetes. She was accompanied by her 85-pound dog, who has been on her side and traveling with her all over the United States. She explained to Taste of Country, “He goes everywhere with me.”

The dog is trained to lay under the seat of an airplane, and he did just this on the flight in question. But because it was a regional flight, the plane was very small, and the dog did not fit fully under the seat. RaeLynn claims that the flight attendant demanded that the dog be completely under the seat during takeoff. Not only was this impossible, the singer says, it would have been unsafe: “if there had been turbulence, he would have been hurt.”

She did her best to accommodate the request, even after the plane was cruising at altitude. According to her, the flight attendant audibly complained about her “non-compliance” throughout the entire flight and also questioned whether or not the dog was truly a service dog. As the plane approached the destination, the flight attendant told RaeLynn that the dog was going to prevent the plane from landing. “It was no way to treat a dog, much less a service dog, and it certainly wasn’t right to treat a passenger like that either,” the singer said.

RaeLynn posted about the incident on Twitter and Instagram after landing. The airline later reached out to her to say that the matter would be investigated.

| October 6th 2015

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